Added support for hi-resolution app icons (xhdpi and xxhdpi formats). Upload a new icon (on the App Info tab) that is at least 192×192 in order to take advantage of this new feature.

Migrated AdMob to version 4.0 of Google Mobile Ads. This is the newest version of AdMob and will keep Andromo developers current going forwards. No changes are needed to existing apps using AdMob.

Added a bit of randomness to when an interstitial ad is shown, so that it does not always display when the first activity is selected.

Made it so Amazon’s app testing service will no longer incorrectly detect a podcast activity as a ringtone app, causing it to be listed as incompatible with Kindle devices in the Amazon app store.

Made it so choosing “Set as Ringtone” on a wifi-only device displays the message “Unable to set ringtone on wifi device” if the device reports its phone type as PHONE_TYPE_NONE.

Fixed an issue where a playlist would fail to download from the server based on the user-agent string. Made it so the app will retry with different user-agent strings if the first was unsuccessful.

Fixed an issue where an audio activity could show an empty list if the activity was stopped while it was expanding or saving a remote playlist.

Fixed an issue that was sometimes causing a “No track” popup message to be shown after rebooting an Android device without headphones plugged in. (Note: all apps on a device must be updated to prevent the popup from being shown.)

Fixed a bug where the second line of description text was being cut off on the List Dashboard.

Great stuff @mark, thanks. Hm, I hope an interstitial ad is shown in first 5 interactions or so. I never ever received a complaint about interstitial ads (intrusiveness) and I have several thousand downloads per day in total. Most apps/games have an interstitial in the first few interactions anyway. I hope this won't lower our earnings too much.

@hendrixs The interstitial will show up after 3 - 8 interactions, chosen at random. We just found that showing the interstitial at the first interaction all the time was a bit too obvious and repetitive. The hope is that by adding a bit of randomness to the interstitials the end users won't be expecting them and therefore might find them more compelling.

If you don't feel that they are being shown enough anymore you could try decreasing the time between ads. If you notice a drop in revenue please let us know.

@ Lorne mobpartner and tapgage perform way worst than leadbolt . There is no way you could have research them as hard and came up with the answer that they perform well. Both companies rely on Andromo for most of thier business . What you guys added today is great and really helps but saying leadbolt performs bad while having the 2 worst networks on board feels like a slap.

@mark Thanks for the good news, I will try out this network it's has a big reputation and Iam sure will make us money. The future looks very bright.

@mark: Interstitials ads at first interaction are quite normal and used by most app devs. I don't see them as a problem, they don't annoy me, and as noted before, AdMob recommends interstitials upon app's launch.

3-8 interactions are OK, when the app is used by a first time visitor, however, returning visitors might just want to check something and leave the app. I have a bunch of apps that people use for references only and don't browse the whole app again, when opening it - interstitials are good as gone in a situation like this.

Also, wallpaper and ringtone apps will hardly get 8 interactions. I have one ringtone app which has only one activity (Audio Player), and trying ringtones doesn't count as an activity, I suppose. Again - interstitials are good as gone and I'm probably not alone with this kind of a situation.

This is all what I see from studying data in Google Analytics.

There is no question in my mind, that earnings will go down. My rough estimate is anywhere from 20 to 40%. For a new user or a hobbyist app publisher, who does this on the side, this change isn't a big thing. But there are many users here, who run their business using Andromo. And for those, this is a really BIG change - it's not an option, but it's an enforced feature.

I'm a bit reluctant to update all my apps on GP, Amazon, and Samsung (eventually all will be updated), just to find out, what I'm already predicting. Testing should be gradual. And now there is no way to test things - this is a new default/enforced mode in which we need to operate.

Things should be viewed in context. Remember GET ACCOUNTS permission? If you're a big publisher, I guess it's OK to have it in - I would trust Google, Facebook, or any other "verified" dev, even if I don't understand, what it means. But if such a request comes from a small indie dev - I would never install such an app (I am not the only one, as it turned out - my apps tanked after that, but you guys were great and fixed that extremely fast). Big feature apps/games naturally have more interactions, than small info apps, which are mostly done with Andromo. So it's normal to expect, that we won't get as many interactions, as the big guys.

If you want the randomness, could you please give it as yes/no (or something similar) option? I never saw this randomness in requests, I don't remember any publisher here on the forum to complain about ads being shown in the first interaction which - again - is even recommended by AdMob, and I never received a complaint about "too much ads".

I'm just asking for a sensible solution, nothing more. A simple "enable/disable randomness" button would give an option for everyone to decide, how they want to show their ads. Either way, it's OK with AdMob's TOS.

me too it would work for apps which have high engagement such as games, but not well for reference apps. i don't not think my apps would get 7-8 interactions per use. i have purposely designed them for ease of use.

I also agree a 100% with Hendrixs!I absolutly HATE your the idea, about the new Interstitials settings.If you feel there is a need for this change, please leave the option to US, either to choose "interstitials upon app's launch" or "interstitials randomness", but don't make it mandatory.

As Hendrixs already said, earnings will go down at least 25% and that is nothing we are looking for!I also have many reference apps and ppl don't have 3-8 interactions.

Some of my apps only have a single activity that leads to my mobile URLs (and further navigation on the website belongs to the same "activity"). That would only be 1 "interaction" and I would loose interstitial income by 100%.

Please change this back to either the old version or make it optional.Until then we cannot build or update any of our apps.

As for the interstitials, we are still loosing money, even it would be lifetime.I haven't had a single complaint about interstitial and I have almost 200.000 impressions every day.This is a classic case of "if it is not broke don't fix it"

Your users (we the andromo users) are happy, our users are happy. There is really no need to change anything.

I simply do not even want try updating my apps (even the other fixes are awesome), because I know how much money will go down the drain for nothing.

When an app is free, users expect ads and no one obviously has a problem with the way it is now.

What is about apps with dashboard NONE? Those would show interstitials only if someone opens the app for the 8th time. That means our income divided by 8 ... instead of $100 only $12,5 ... Thank you but no thanks ;-)

We'll talk this over in the office here and come to a decision. The only thing I'll comment about is that just because you haven't had any of your users complain, doesn't mean it hasn't affected your apps. If the first thing they saw was an interstitial ad, it may have turned them off, and they just uninstalled it without giving it a chance. I'm sure everyone has a percentage of uninstalls a day as well ie. install, then uninstall. Everyone has a different tolerance as far as interstitial ads go, so you can't say it's not possible that it hasn't affected retention rates. And as the other guys mentioned, having things so predictable does make it less effective in theory. People have requested this type of change, and we've felt that way personally from a user standpoint.

Either way, we understand your point of view from the comments and we'll talk this over, just wanted to add my 2 cents about our thought process.

@mark: I too won't update my apps with this new feature. I'm on hold and thinking what to do next.

You guys always proved to be very accessible and have shown care for your customers. Please don't change this. It's not about "us against you." It's about working together for the benefit of both parties. If you are not "forced" into this random showing of interstitials by anyone external (an ad partner or whoever), then I see no reason, why you would not want to give us an option of enabling or disabling the random showing of ads.

Speaking of ad partners - a big welcome to Millenial Media ad network. I would like to give them a try. Also, if you'll be considering any new networks to bring on board (the more the better), please consider Chartboost, AppLovin or StartApp. Anywhere you look, these guys have good reviews, devs have good experiences with them, and are generally popular with Android/iOS community.

@darryl: Thanks for the input and I see your point. However, an option to test this ourselves (on/off) would prove most beneficial. I would test random ads on one of my less popular apps - but I would also want to be able to turn the feature off, if it proves bad. Please remember what happened, when you tried to optimize the ad revenue for us (that checkbox with no clear explanation which was once available).

Content, Content, Content - That is what my users want - and they don't mind ads, just not in your face as soon as you try and use the app. This will now seem more subtle and is great. I have hardly ever had complaints, but as soon as i started using interstitials I did get some. Before, you couldn't even use the first activity without a fullscreen ad showing - which was quite intrusive for my users. But generally i think people dont complain about ads, they either suffer them, uninstall or are not bothered. People will notice there isn't an ad in your face as soon as they use the app - and will prefer it (IMO)

@tamworthheat: That's why we would need an option to test this ourselves. I used to work in a high school as a network admin and my office was next to the computer lab. When working with students, I had a chance to look at their mobiles (they were showing me something, or the mobile was "broken", or they wanted to brag a little with their new mobile, etc.) and you would not believe, how spammy their phones were. Notification messages all over the place, search bars here and there, millions of apps installed, it was a total mess! (now GP is taking some action against this) However, 95% of students didn't care at all.

Younger population has grown up with ads, they don't mind them as much. My generation (30 somethings) are a bit more ad aware. However, everyone should be able to decide for himself, what he wants to do. AdMob is OK with ads upon app launches and in-between activity ads, but they don't allow exit ads. So why enforce one option, if you have two options available made possible from the publisher itself?

@hendrixs: we've investigated all of those. Chartboost is not possible since their network only allows games. StartApp has several issues which I will not go into here.

There's a lot of old information and misinformation about ad networks out there. There are many ad networks that performed well in the past before the Google policy changes, but that no longer do. And there are ad networks that performed well by doing nasty things like showing fake virus alerts, and that is something we simply will not permit.

As for the interstitial timing change, we did this in an effort to improve your results, not hurt them. Randomizing the timing for interstitial ads is considered a good practice. It can improve user retention and make the ads more effective by being more difficult to anticipate. For instance, the default timing for interstitial ads recommended by AppBrain is to show one at random once every three days.

We do appreciate your concerns so we are making this behaviour optional, it will be off by default, and we may even reduce the range for the interactions a bit.

Keep in mind, though, that users are much more likely to click on an ad if they like your app. I've clicked on ads before when I had no actual interest in the ad, just to support the developer...but I wouldn't do that for an app that I felt was pestering me with ads.

Darryl and Mark rebuilt their own apps as soon as this version was released specifically to take advantage of this change, because there's a good chance this will improve their $$ in the long run, not reduce it.

@lorne: Thank you for the answer. I'll be happy to test the randomized version myself also, but if the results will get worse, I'll be at ease to know, that I can revert the back. Thanks again for your efforts - much appreciated!

Also just adding on the Startapp while I market in the many android groups on Facebook I see the StartApp rep really spamming . I don't know if they are good or not but they are annoying to the point of me almost banning one of them from my Facebook group. They might be a great company but they to work on marketing properly.

Just a headsup, we have decided to add an option to control this behaviour.

I would test it out and decide which one works the best for your app. And when I say "test it out" I also mean just test it locally. If you think it works well locally then upload it, if not, change the setting and rebuild.

Also the is the possibility that in the future "interactions" can be more than just activity launches, maybe photo clicks, wallpaper-sets, track playing, etc.

I don't know if others have the same trends in their apps, but app installs and revenue fluctuates a fair amount for me and also varies depending on the days of the week (weekdays, weekends etc.). I think it will likely take a couple weeks for any trend to bubble to the surface, or at least be somewhat reliable. I also haven't had time to update my apps in other stores yet.

Personally I'll be monitoring Google Play initially since it's easy to get install/uninstall data to see if it makes any difference. And of course any changes in AdMob. It's only been a couple days, but I'll get back to you guys with any useful information I gather from the change.

@darryl, that will be great, thanks! The revenues are pretty stable for me, no big fluctuations there, the same is with app installs. However, I'll try to do some stuff on the marketing side to further improve downloads and maximize my current portfolio potential.